Not sure if you saw my piece from last week, but I stated Kelly is essentially a missed hire, even if he did turn it around. A coach going through some sort of re-birth in the 8th season with just two double digit win seasons that were three years apart has failed. Knowing what they know they wouldn't hire him again.
And I think one of the bigger, underplayed parts of that miss is in recruiting. I should have had it in the piece. He recruits better than Weis or Willingham, but not at a level that gets Notre Dame over the hump as a program. He's had one top 5 class in 7 cycles. That's not going to work. He develops the guys he brings in pretty well, but they don't recruit like an elite program.
It's mentioned a lot they are so far from being elite, which I don't think is true. He's competed with Oklahoma, Clemson, Florida State, and Stanford. The problem is while they aren't that far from the elite, they aren't that far from the mediocre either, which has bit them in the ass multiple times when they play poorly.
That wasn't what he was hired to do. He was hired to be Meyer or Harbaugh. He's not. He's just better than Weis and Tyrone.